extract
Verbextracts, extracting, extracted
Noun pluralextracts
Formsextracts, extracting, extracted
Pluralextracts
- 1To draw or pull something out, removing it forcibly from a fixed position by traction, suction, or similar means.
Surgeons extract the bullet before closing the wound.
The machine extracts nails from old planks one by one.
Similarremove, pull, withdraw, draw, extricate
Oppositeinsert
Note
The physical core of the verb, and the sense that stretches furthest. In Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) the bee sits on the bloom "extracting liquid sweet". In 2013 The Economist writes of extracting oil in earnest. By 2025 Christian Wolmar can speak of operators that "extract revenue" from Great British Railways. Teeth, oil and money are all pulled out the same way. Alongside extracted, an archaic past participle, extraught, also exists.
- 2
- 3A substance drawn out from something, retaining the essential qualities of its source.
The recipe calls for a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.
Herbalists sell plant extracts that concentrate the active compounds.
Similaressence, concentrate, distillate
Note
Here the word names the substance itself rather than a liquid made from it. Quinine is the most important extract of Peruvian bark. What counts is that the extract is characteristic of its source, the thing that gives the bark its value. That separates it from the prepared solution, which is made by steeping or boiling. This extract is the principle such a solution is meant to capture.
- 4
- 5To select and quote a passage from a text; to cite.
She extracted several telling sentences from the report for her summary.
Critics extract passages that best illustrate the writer's style.
Similarquote, cite, excerpt, select
Note
Quoting becomes a kind of removal here: the passage leaves a larger work and is set down in another. The verb is transitive and takes from or out of, as when Jonathan Swift's Drapier's Letters (1724) extracts falsehoods "out of that pamphlet". James George Frazer's The Golden Bough (1900) extracts a description "entire", meaning without cuts. The piece lifted out is the quoted passage itself.
- 6Something that has been extracted or drawn out from a larger whole.
Researchers stored each extract in a separate vial.
The final extracts were combined into one sample.
Note
The general sense that the others narrow down. It comes from Latin extractum, a form of extrahō, built from ex- "out of" and trahō "to drag". An extract is literally what has been dragged out of something larger. Most everyday uses specialize it, toward the quoted passage or the flavoring or medicinal solution. The bare general sense is the one to use when the particular kind does not matter.
- 7
- 8A solution or infusion prepared by drawing from a substance the part that carries its essential, characteristic properties.
The pharmacist prepared a bitter extract from the willow bark.
Traditional remedies often rely on extracts steeped from dried roots.
Similarinfusion, essence, concentrate
Note
The kitchen and the old pharmacy share this word, and it takes two shapes: the source can stand in front, as in vanilla extract, or follow with of, as in extract of beef or extract of dandelion. Either way, the liquid carries what made the original distinctive. Boil such a solution down to a solid and you have the evaporated preparation instead.
- 9A solid preparation produced by evaporating a solution of a drug or the fresh juice of a plant.
The apothecary stored each extract as a dried, gummy mass.
Several plant extracts were ground into powder for the pills.
Note
Pharmacy's solid form of the word. A solution of a drug, or a plant's fresh juice, is evaporated, and the extract is what remains. Pharmacy distinguishes it from an abstract, so in that setting the two terms should not be swapped. It also stands opposite the liquid infusion: in this sense the extract is what is left once the liquid has gone.
- 10To determine a root of a number, such as its square or cube root.
Early algebra texts taught readers how to extract square roots manually.
The method extracts the cube root through repeated approximation.
Similarcalculate, compute, find, determine
Note
Arithmetic keeps the image of drawing out: one extracts the square or cube root of a number. The usual pattern names the root and the number, as in extract the cube root of 27. In Samuel Beckett's Watt (1953), a candidate is examined "in cubing and extracting", with the verb standing alone. The root is understood without being named, which shows how settled the phrase is.
- 11The line of ancestry or descent from which a person comes.
The nobleman boasted of his ancient extract.
She took pride in her Highland extract.
Similardescent, ancestry, lineage, extraction, stock
- 12A certified copy of a written record, especially of court proceedings and the judgment, carrying authority to enforce it.
The lawyer requested an extract of the final decree.
Officials would not act without a sealed extract from the court.
Similarcopy, transcript
Less common meaning
- 13A single fundamental principle once mistakenly thought to form the common basis of all plant-derived substances.
Note
A mistaken theory preserved in a word. Chemists once supposed that a single essence lay at the base of every vegetable extract, and they called that essence the extract. The idea proved wrong and the sense is obsolete. Use it only when describing that older belief, and make the historical frame clear. Otherwise a reader will simply hear an ordinary plant extract.
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Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Latin extractum, the past participle of extrahō, which is formed from ex- ("out of") and trahō ("to drag").